After five years with nothing but the ringing in our ears to comfort us, the silence will finally be broken this summer when Fear Factory return for Big Day Out. Since forming in 1989, this Los Angeles quartet have consistently forged new territory, proving themselves masters of metal reinvention, and producing an industrial metal classic in 1995’s Demanufacture. But frayed tensions, over-exertion and personal differences led to an implosion in the early 2000s, followed by several years’ hiatus.

Due in February, their long-awaited seventh album, Mechanize, is a full-fisted blast of passion and innovation that sounds like the missing link between the caustic Demanufacture and 1998’s more nuanced Obsolete. Judging by the first taste of Mechanize, single Powershifter, we’re in for something crushing and colossal, melding fast and precise rhythms, vocals that veer from raw and scathing to hauntingly melodic, punishing beats, rapid-fire riffs, ghostly keyboards and street-lethal metal.

With their 1992 debut album, Soul Of A New Machine, Fear Factory seemingly appeared overnight, changing the face of heavy music forever. Fear Factory return to Australia in 2010 to prove, once again, that their status as one of metal’s greatest live performers remains unsurpassed.